


The Other Side

by zkdline



Category: EXO (Band), Sekai - Fandom
Genre: Gender or Sex Swap, M/M, Mental Instability, Multiple Universes Colliding, Partner Betrayal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-01 17:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15148175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zkdline/pseuds/zkdline
Summary: And Kai keep seeings people that looks exactly like him dying in his dreams ; repeatedly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really have some issues whether I want to make this story way gory than I supposed to do. I have so much shits going on for this story but when it comes to explain why the dreams and those things happened to our deary Nini in the first place, that might be a problem. Since I never really think that it's that necessary to do that ( don't ask me why bc I work that way. never really questions stuff ) but I guess, people would have want to know every reasons behind every whys. 
> 
> I tried to compile every ideas for this story on a piece of paper. Still, it didn't sounded right? 
> 
> This story was created due to dreams that I have and also, because I crave to write some horror shits.

“I don’t need you anymore.” 

The words rangs through his mind during the entire day. He couldn’t force himself to concentrate anymore on his drawing, with his fingers shaking so badly against the blank canvas. The tip of his brush is dip with red, and he is putting foce onto the said thing toward the canvas, gritting on his lower lips to seal his desire to shed tears. It’s palpable to happen, he consoles himself, that Sehun eventually would have said that. Considering the circumstances that they had being through these past months couldn’t even be counted as decent. As all they ever did are fights. The constant arguments about anything for the sake of getting on each other’s nerve.   
Jongin is growing exhausted by days. Tired of hoping that things will be better. Tired of wanting to amend everything between them. When Sehun couldn’t even be bother to bat his eyelashes about these situations. 

He needs fresh air. He need to get out – fast. It’s suffocating. Jongin couldn’t bring himself to draw even a simplest line without messing things up. Everything turns to out to be a mess, a reminder that he, himself was a mess. So, without any final warning, he lets himself to break into pieces, a choked sobs tumble out from his mouth. Tears rolling down onto his cheeks, when he hastily wipes it off harshly out from his face – refuses to acknowledge the pain and the reason behind the tears that he’s shedding at the moment. He stands up from the stool and rushes outside, looking for a ghast glimpse of Sehun’s broad shoulder, probably still packing his things but to fine none. Even the mug are gone, and it seems like Sehun really leave nothing in the span of hours Jongin locked himself in the drawing room because he couldn’t bear to see Sehun’s leaving.

Rushing toward the door, Jongin blatantly ignores his state of self, bare of shoes as he runs down the emergency stairs, afraid that if he spares another minute to wait for the lift, Sehun will be gone, permenantly from his life. His steps slips for few times on the stairs because of his natural clumsiness, and with his state of blurriness due to the tears, yet he ignores the slight throbbing – ignoring the fact that those will turn into blisters if he keep on going barefoot. 

The tanned male didn’t realise that he’s already reaching to the lobby stairs, as he pushes the goddamn door with enough strength before sprinting fill force toward the open road. Maybe, it’s due to his adrenaline rush that urge him to find Sehun amidst the crowd out there makes him forget of the surrounding. Cars honking, and before he knows it, he is already laying on the pavement floor of the road. He could faintly feels the impact of the front car against him. For all he could remembers that time is the memory of Sehun’s back walking out from his visions and he sobs. His vision is threatening to fade to black, as he barely sees the small black dots that’s slowly covering up the whole frames.   
The smells of the rain stills there, he notices. And Jongin remembers the time where Sehun finally confessed to him under the rain, the same night where Sehun’s team won the final games for the rugby tournament against their neighbouring school. Sehun’s smile was blinding that night as he raises his trophy up in the air, with their hands enterwining, lacing together into one. 

But every story must have come to an end. 

A drop of blood falls through his vision, making him seeing red. 

Jongin blinks, shutting off the noises around him for the last time, before his head tilts to the side – missing the last frames where Sehun runs into the picture toward his lifeless body in a mass of people. 

 

 

 

 

KAI’S APARTMENT, 13TH OF JULY – 3 HOURS SINCE THE FIRST DREAMS

 

Three in the morning. 

Kai jerks out from his dreams, sweating. His breathing are labors, rigged as he brings his shaking hands through his hair. He take a look of his surrounding, and a sigh of relief passes through the corner of his lips as he rubs his chest. Kai combs his front hair that’s wet due to his sweat away from his face, before swinging both of his legs out from the bed. 

 

Gripping tighly on the end of his bed, Kai’s shoulder are slumps at the thought of his nightmare. He’s still trying to soothe his racing heart with those breathing technics he read somewhere in the web. It feels too , as if he’s seeing himself dying in that pool of red, with the sirens blaring through the backgrounds. Those buildings, the road – it looks familiar, but Kai couldn’t pin point the exact place in his mind. And somehow, his head are throbbing painfully, and it feels as if someone just hit him square in the head with a fucking bat. Taking it as another affect that his nightmare brings ( he never have one, usually it’ll only ends up in blank frames. ) Kai decides to put it aside and brace himself to walk to the bathroom. 

Seeing how he’s already awake, even at this godly hours, Kai couldn’t bring himself to sleep anymore. It would take another hours to force his eyes to shut, and he have early class today. 

He lets the faucet running, letting both of his hands roams at each edge of the sink as he stares into the holes in the sink. Kai huffs in annoyance. The nightmare is taking toll on his head, and now, he couldn’t forget them. Every details of the dreams. 

So, he scrubs his face off with the cold water, letting them washes over his features over and over again as if he’s trying to drown himself with the water. Maybe it’s a sign, he thoughts. He could use the remaining times to revise yesterday notes, checks his reports so he could finally finalize the draft before emailing them to his lecture, or, he could catch up on his favorites TV series, Reign. And as much as he want to forget about his dream, it stuck like a broken tape rewinding the same scene, so he needs a distraction – fast. 

Odd, he muses. 

He can’t even draw to save his life. His technical drawing marks are above average, something that he’s not proud of. But in his dreams…< he could draw> \- He looks like he knows what to do with the blank canvas yet there’s something refraining him from doing so. It’s maybe the pain – Kai don’t know, he’s confuse himself. Plus, with the line of full canvas that are lining up along the wall are enough proof to Kai, that the version of himself in the dream can draw. Unlike him. 

Deciding that it’s better to ignore the dream – for the nth times, Jongin rubs his face with the towel that he always hang beside the sink when a blotch of crimson draws his attention in. 

 

He blinks, gripping his towel in fear. The dreams flashes through his eyes, as he shakingly bring his hands to touch his nose, hoping that he’s only imagining things.   
There’s a sticky subtances stick to his fingers, and Kai shifts his gaze toward the mirror, staring at his pale, shocked face reflects on the said things. The blood drips from his nose, down to his jawline, staining his pajama shirt. 

“What-“ he mumbles, but even before he could finish out his sentence, a rush of pain attacks him at once, catching him off guard, but Jongin quickly grips himself to sink, as he slowly lets his body slides down to the cold tiles of his bathroom – clutching onto his head. He tries to blink the dizziness and the pain away, shaking his head since his vision is starting to get blurry but it didn’t work. 

It stays on for a minute – the longest sixty seconds in his life, and Kai is already laying on the floor, eyes closes. 

 

 

Kai ends up calling for Jongdae. 

The said male is pacing through the kitchen, looking for the hot chocolate mix in one of the cupboard while waiting for the hot water to boil. And Kai is curling into a ball on the couch, blankets drapes over his entire beings. There’s an abandon towel that’s full with dried patches of his blood on the floor, and his pajama shirt that’s also drained in red.   
Jongdae was in a state of shocked, maybe beyond that when he came into the scene with a lifeless Kai laying on the floor with blood dripping down from his nose like a waterfall. He asked the younger male how he even managed to make a call, but Jongin shrugged because he don’t remember anything. He’s confuse too.

Jongdae places the hot drinks on the table, face frown in concern,”You okay?” 

And the said male grunts under the blanket. 

“ Thank godness you called. If not, I don’t know what would have happen. Maybe bleeding until you runs out of blood in the floor. And no one will notice your absent and I’ll start thinking you’re ignoring me,” Jongdae blabbers, jabbing onto Kai’s rib. 

Kai whines, inching away from the abusive fingers,”Stop exaggerating things. It was just a nosebleed.”

“But you never have nosebleed before!” Jongdae snaps, his shoulders are tense and Kai decides to seal his lips. 

Jongdae sighs, seeming guilty at his outburst but he didn’t take any initiation to say sorry either. And Kai also didn’t seem to be feeling remorse for making the older snapped. They settle on with the sudden quiteness. It’s weird, because they never run out of words to say to each other – unless they’re reminding back the time where they were fighting over their dysfunctional relationship. Jongdae had accused Kai for being that type of lover who never paid attention to his partner, and that make the younger male pissed. It was a big fight, that Baekhyun couldn’t even get in between until Jongdae give up and apologise, since as Baekhyun had told him, be the older one in the relationship.

Plus, Kai was never a person who’s good at giving affection, and Jongdae is naturally a clingy type person. They never worked well, and Kai wondered how they even agreed to be together. That probably because of the lingering lust that lingers drove him to accept. But ever since he got into college, Kai grow detached to socialising. His study matter are way more important and Jongdae tried to be more understandable but well, things need to end between them.

Jongdae caresses the top of the younger male’s hair, “Skip class today. You sound like you need some rest,” he suggested. It’s not like he’s putting that much hope that Kai would blatantly agreed to his suggestion but it won’t hurt to try. 

It’s already five in the morning and Jongdae don’t have any morning classes today. Kai have a theory class to attend at eight. 

Kai moves, gravitating to the hands that caresses his hair. 

“Nini,” Jongdae presses. It’s seldom that Jongdae used that nickname against the younger. It’s always work, when he tried to get Kai’s attention and it did, because Kai whines softly against his thigh, “I have to go to that class.”

< Guess so.> “Alright. Sleep. I’ll wake you up at seven thirty.” 

 

 

Kai ignores the throbbing pain in his head as he searches for an empty seat at the front of the lecture halls, gripping tightly onto his files to his chest with his other hands trying to balance his bag over his shoulder. Yet, the halls seems to be fill with students already, and Kai really want to curse his luck today. Maybe he should have take Jongdae’s advice to say at home, sleep the pain away. That nightmare really is fucking him over. He already swallow down two painkiller before getting out from the house, and was jinxing his luck that it’ll manage to supress the pain away.

He’s about to opt to sit at the middle of the hall, where there’s an empty seat beside this bored-looking girl chewing bubble gum when he hears someone calls out for his name from the front. Three lines away from the slide and his professor table. A perfect seat if he want to copy everything down for notes. 

The guy calls him again, waving his hands, “Jongin, here.”

Having no choice, he’s debating with himself whether he should go to the guy or not, but it’s tempting, so he walks down few rows of the seat toward the new guy.   
Shooting the said guy a grateful smile, Jongin places his bag on the floor. “Thanks.” 

They didn’t exactly exchanged any more words afterward, since the guy is comfortable to keep the mysterious air around him, keeping his lips seal shut while Kai squirms in his seat, trying to rack his mind to see if they ever talked before. Yet, his brains show him nothing but more throbbing from the left side of his head. 

The classes going on like usual, but Kai couldn’t pay his whole attention to the slide. His fingers is shaking, and his head is doing nothing to help him to distract himself from the pain. He hungs his head low, hissing when his visions are starting to get blurry like the time he’s in the bathroom. 

A hands grip over his forearm, and Jongin almosts whimpers in pain. “You okay?” And he nods, pulling his hands away from the grip politely. Kai shifts his attention toward the slide in front of him, trying to ignore the sharp gaze that lingers on him. It’s uncomfortable to say at least, but he need to hold it in. He have 4 hours and a half before the class dismisses and he really didn’t think he can last longer. It lasted way longer than he thought, the guy beside him insist on keeping his eyes on him and Kai really is trying hard to be fine. 

“So, this is the filtering or smoothing rectifier formula so you might want to jot that down because it’s going to be in the test next week,” his lecture’s voice booms through the hall, before the sounds of papers and pens are heard across the whole space. 

Kai put a force on his hands to grip onto his pen properly, wanting to write those formula down when a drop of blood drips onto his notebook.   
It continues to drip, and Kai froze on his place, staring at the blood that’s pooling on his notebook. His head turns blank, and he seems like he don’t know what to do but to stay there and watch the crimson filled page. The girl who sat beside him just happen to glance at his side and naturally, she screams, seeing the blood that’s streaming down Kai’s nose. 

Everyone turns their head toward the girl, and noises start to fills in when they saw Kai’s bloody nose. Their lecture stops the class and rushes to their seat – and Baekhyun decided to barge in the class, being late as always. 

Seeing the commosion, Baekhyun pushes the other student aside to look at what happen, and his eyes widen when he sees his friend’s condition. Their lecture already are crounching in front of Kai, that still is frozen in his seat when Baekhyun yells at the nearest student to call out for Kai’s brother at the Counsil Office. 

“Ni?” – its sounds distant, Kai thoughts. His world is spinning, but he couldn’t make out the noises around him. He knows everyone are freaking out, and he could see his lecture in front of him. Yet, he didn’t respond to any of its. He’s clueless. He wants to cry because it hurt, at the same time, he didn’t.   
“Jongin.” 

His body gives up on him as he falls into unconsiousness. 

 

 

 

<>

 

 

 

Jongin sighs at the coldness of the night, wrapping his trench coat closer to his body to huddle over the warmth that the coat could provide. His boot are making scrapping sounds across the lobby tiles, when he presses his cold fingers against the lift button. 

He have finished three canvas today, an achievement that he should be proud off, but he didn’t. Minseok’s words rang through his head about how those art frame have nothing but sadness to be told. He have tried to put more colors, but lately, his head couldn’t cooperate with rainbows. And when he’s in the lift, Jongin still lets his mind lingers to back to his canvas until he reaches the floor to his and Sehun’s shared apartment. 

Stumbling onto the wrong keys, Jongin curses the damn keys before manage to unlock the door. He get rids of his coat, and his boots – throwing his bag and keys on the couch, trudging toward the kitchen for a nice cup of hot tea, if it’s possible. He remembers that there are only three tea bags left. 

Opening the cupboard in search for a mug and the tea box, Jongin finds the chocolate drinks mix instead and so, he quickly fills up the pot with water from the sink and boils it.   
He dumps five spoons of chocolate mix into the mug, and walks toward the fridge to find his chocolate bar when a stronger hands pulls him away by his waist. A warm lips pressed onto the edge of his ears, and Jongin shudders when he recognise the musky scent everywhere. 

He breaths, “Sehun.”

The said male hums, continue to leave feathery kisses down from Jongin’s ear to the older’s neck. Jongin cranes his head backward, exposing more skins for the other male to suck on the supple skins slowly. Sehun lets his hands under the smaller’s male shirt, while his other one traps Jongin’s waist from moving away. 

He turns Jongin arounds, relishing the sight of his partner that’s clouded with wanted. Jongin’s cupid bows are parted, and his breathing are turning harbours from the gentle kisses and the warmth hands that’s caressing his bare skins. Jongin cuddles closer, hooking his head under the taller male’s chin for comfort. But Sehun is not having any of it at the moment, as he corners the said male toward the edge of their kitchen counter top. 

Jongin whimpers when the edge of the counter come in contact with his hips, pushing the slightly bigger male away because he’s getting suffocated from all the sudden affection. Sehun expects it to happen, so he snakes his hands back around Jongin’s waist, massaging them gently as it to soothe the male down and it did, when Jongin lets Sehun to nudge his chins up for a slow kiss. 

Sehun didn’t put any extra force into the kiss, merely savoring the moments. He bites Jongin’s lower lips when the smaller male lets his guard down, sucking on the flesh – earning a soft moan elicits out from Jongin. He runs his hands down to Jongin’s thighs, hooking them up around his hips before he pulls Jongin up to the counter without breaking the kiss. 

Intoxicated in the kisses, Jongin didn’t realize that his pants is off from his legs, and he’s sprawl over the counter top with Sehun’s pressing down against him, sucking on his collarbone. He arches his head backwards, his minds are clouded with the euphoria and he couldn’t possible care about his surrounding – didn’t realise how Sehun’s hands are growing closer to his neck. 

Sehun sniggers. You foolish child. 

Sehun wraps both of his hands around Jongin’s neck, pressing his thumbs on the front of the male’s windpipe as he sends the male under him a wicked simpers. Tears poured down Jongin’s cheeks when he’s having a hard time to breath, choking. He mouthed to Sehun, begging to let him go, but it’s futile. Jongin’s body begins to seize and thrash with the desperation for air. His legs are kicking up in the air, an effort to push the stronger male out on top of him but Sehun have himself presses harder against the smaller male, arching his body forward to stare down at the suffocated male. “You know I love you, right?” he whispers softly. 

Jongin’s lungs contracted painfully in his rubcage and he feel sick to his stomach. Blood rushed into his hears, draining out from his face as the grips on his neck are getting stronger. His vision begins to blur, and everything seems to move slower. His muscles starts to relax as he begins to fade. 

 

 

 

 

 

<>

SEOUL HOSPITAL, 13TH OF JULY 

 

Kai’s eyes flew opens widely as he panickly breaths. Tears runs down his cheeks, and his throat hurts. And he want to run so bad. The dreams are starting to get on his nerve, and it’s starting to make the fear to grow in his system that make him desperate not wanting to fall asleep again. In case he might see another scenarios of him dying. 

He never been choke before, hell, he never would imagine seeing himsef being in such situations. As kinky as it sounds, he wouldn’t get himself into any possiblity that would get him begging for air. Although he used to drown himself in the tub when he’s having an anxiety attack. 

Joonmyeon comes in sight, with a tall male following dangerously close behind his brother. “Jongin, hey, you’re awake?” 

The images of his dreams, where he sees the dream him was thrashing around on the counter top for air floods his visions when he locks eyes with the said tall guy. 

He have the same features as the man in his dreams and every fibre in his being are loudly shouting red. Jongin sobs, shaking his head as he pushes himself away from the bed, “No, get him away from me,” he yells, voice hoarse. 

Joonmyeon is flabbergasted by the sudden reaction so he tries to calm his younger brother down but it’s futile when Kai pushes his hands away. The older male sends the other guy a pleading look, silently asking for help to hold his brother’s down while he calls for doctor. 

“Sehun-“

And that seem to trigger Kai way more than it should when the said male yells. He grabs the vase on the table beside his bed and throws it toward Sehun’s directions with full force. His body is trembling when the dreams keep repeating in his head. But Sehun is unfaze by the harsh treatment as he went toward Joonmyeon to hold the tanned male down.   
The doctors rushes in, a minute after Joonmyeon runs out from the ward room with a needle and Kai looks betrayed when one of the nurse shoots him before he falls back to unciousness.


	2. Chpt II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Desclaimer : This is a work of fiction, whether it make sense or not, it’s a fiction in the first place.
> 
> ( bgm : All the Stars by Kendrick Lamar ft SZA )

16TH OF JULY, ROOFTOP OF SEOUL HOSPITAL – TWO DAYS SINCE THE FIRST DREAM. 

There’s void of noises up on the rooftop, somewhere that Kai could finally break through without having anyone to pester him about what have happened. The wind caresses his cheeks gently, as he pulls his legs up against his chest, leaning himself against the wall. It’s fairly empty, minus the hamper area where the hospital staff are hanging the bedsheets and pillowcase.

It’s white. 

Kai winces, grimace takes over all his features when he glance at the dull color of the fabric. How hospital suppose to be a place that people are not afraid of, if they refuse to have colors decorating half part of their space? As much as Kai is not an artful person, one who have eyes for art, but he knows colors sometimes bright up certain places. Those white sheets make it seem like there’s nothing to look forward too. Even his hospital dress is a horrible shade of green. It reminded him of puke.

And now, he’s stuck in a place he loathe the most. While his brother would have probably freak out by now when Joonmyeon returns back from the cafeteria to find the bed empty. It have been two days, since the last unfortunate event happened and Kai still didn’t have any solid reasons as to why it happened in the first place. The tall guy who had company his brother – also the one who fortunately lifted him up when he fainted in the class toward the car before he was drove to the hospital with a panicking brother wiping the blood out from his nose are nowhere to be seen when he woke up for the second time. 

He’s relieves, really.

The second dreams freak him out a lot. Especially when Kai lcoked eyes with the same man as the one in his dreams and the only differ the present hold is perhaps he won’t kill Kai like in the dream. It’s funny, how he have grown paranoid over such short span of time. Still, it happened, and there’s no return to what he’s feeling right at the moment. He have never feels this way, the constant fear that’s slowly eating him up, and this is only the second time. If it’s only a nightmare, why does things that never ever happened to him over these past twenty two years he have lived, happens? Nosebleed? Fainted? He never went through those phases. Amongst him and his older brother, Kai is the strong one, one that’s immune to any sickness. 

But, things are starting to change. 

 

Kai didn’t notice the presence of another person, too caught in the winds that seem to likely sings him comfort, until the said person plops himself beside him.

“It’s soothing here, isn’t it?” and Kai jumps in his place. His mouths gasps in surprised, with his hands automatically clutches on his chest. It didn’t end there. As soon he realises that the man who have sit beside him is the same man who he’s trying to run away from, Kai have gone pale. He quickly shuffles on his feet to stand up but the man is faster. He pulls the tanned male hands and make him sit again. 

He frowns, “I’m not going to hurt you,”

Kai shakes his head, shaking. “Of course,” he mumbles out. He didn’t let his guard down, eyes wondering around to search for any posibility to escape if that man tries to do anything to him, but after a minute have stretch on between them without anything happened, Kai wills himself to calm down. A bit.

Kai shifts back to his position – curling his hands around his legs props to his chest. And that guy keeps his silence. It’s not that uncomfortable. So, he consoles himself to talk. He didn’t say thank you to the guy yet; for helping him. And manner is still manners. 

Kai clears his throat, “Thank you,” he softly mutters those words out, keeping his head anywhere else than the guy. “If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know who would carry me out the class.”

The guy chuckles, clearly amuses when Kai breaks their silence. And Kai thinks that, perhaps, the one who’s sitting beside him is not the same as the one in the dream. Plus, it’s only a dream. He’s not going to let a mere dream – or two to ruin his perception over someone just because they looks the same. It’s unfair. 

“Take you long enough to say that,” he chimes in, and Kai blushes. Kai nibbles on his lower lips, not knowing what to say afterwards. It’s not like he can drop the new that he didn’t want to talk to that guy because of a dream. 

That’s ridiculous if he thinks throughly. Surely he will be laughed off by the guy. 

“I’m Sehun, by the way,” he continues, seeing the troubles in Kai’s part to keep the conversation going. Kai opens up his mouth to reply, maybe introducing himself, but Sehun cuts him over, “You’re Jongin. Joonmyeon told me about you.” 

Kai raises his eyebrows at the mentioned of his brother, “Really?” he inquires, disbelieve. Although, he’s not that surprised, because Joonmyeon really couldn’t keep his mouth shut sometimes. 

Sehun nods, conforming his thought. 

“We meet, when I was trying to settle my things at the dean office.”

Kai laughs, already imagining the excitement in his brother’s eyes when he sees someone new at the dean office. Joonmyeon practically knows everyone in the campus area and that guy did make sure he keep updates about it. “And he just decided that it’s okay to talk about me?”

Sehun snorts,”No. Part of the talk. He asked what major I took and I told engineering. I think it’s enough for that guy to tell me about his little brother that coindentally, we have the same major.” The taller guy emphasis on the words coincidentally, before shrugging. “It’s not that bad, I promise. He seem like he dots on you a lot.” 

“He did,” Kai whispers, bringing his legs closer until his chins touches the top of his knees. 

After a while, Kai continues, “How did you recognise it’s me, though? In the class?” 

The taller male shrugs. And Kai decides that he don’t want to know too. Sometime, it’s best not to know although he’s curious if Joonmyeon did showed Sehun his picture when they were talking. It feel kind of off, added to the fact that the Sehun in his dream looks exactly the same as the one who’s sitting beside him at the moment. 

Sehun didn’t say anything afterwards, neither do Kai. Bracing on the stilnness until the suns set, and the skies turn into a shade darker before Sehun nudges the smaller male to get back, in case Joonmyeon is crazy enough to sue the hospital for losing his little brother. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUHO’S APARTMENT, 17TH OF JULY 2016 

“Is the soup, okay?”

Kai puts his spoons down to stare at his brother’s expectant eyes. There’s a glimmer of hope glints around the older’s orbs as he pucks his lips, waiting for Kai’s reply. And the younger mentally laughs. He nods, still. And Joonmyeon lets out a sigh of relief. 

The older sits back on the high stool, adjacent to his own one. “I’m glad. I asked Baekhyun for the recipe. Expect him to be nice about it but he make fun of me,” Joonmyeon complains, propping his chins over his palm as he watches the younger male continue sipping on the homemade soup. 

Kai rolls his eyes at the mention of the another male, fully expects that Baekhyun won’t let it go without laughing over his brother’s misery to cook. It’s not like Joonmyeon didn’t exactly knows how to, it just, not everyone is have that skill to cook a decent meal even with a provided recipe. One time Joonmyeon tried to bake the chocolate chip cookies on Kai’s fourteen birthday, he burnt all of them in one batch. 

Since then, Kai took over the kitchen mostly. 

The younger male gulps down the last drop of the soup, before putting them down on the counter top with a content smile. “It’s delicious, okay. I’m starting to doubt that you make this one.” 

“And I did so suck it up.” 

Kai playfully glares at his brother, “Right.” 

He’s about to stand up from the stool to clean the bowl when Joonmyeon forbids him, asking him to sit back and lets him do the dishes later since Kai just got back from the hospital and Joonmyeon don’t want the younger to do anything but rest like the doctor have asked. “I’m not completely unstable for you to treat me like a dying person, hyung.”  
Joonmyeon shushes him. 

“Hyung,” he whines but Joonmyeon ignores him. He collects the dishes and puts them into the sink before starting to wash those out – backfacing the younger. 

“You got me there, you know,” his brother’s tone are soft, weaks and Kai blinks as the older keeps on scrubbing the plates. “I thought I’m going to receive a bad news when the doctor walked out from your ward. Those bad thoughts that maybe you have cancer or anything bad kills me from inside until that horrible man who didn’t even smile told me that you’re fine.” 

“Hyung,” Kai calls out, feeling guilty but Joonmyeon turns to face him, leaning onto the sink. And Kai sees the frown line marring over the other male’s forehead. How he have forget that his hyung are growing older by each seconds that passes by and his heart cleanched. “I didn’t meant to,” he starts off, and Joonmyeon sighs. 

He wipes his wet hands on his jeans before walking over to the counter top to pull the younger’s hands into his own palm. “I know, Nini. But I can’t help it. You are not under my care anymore since you insist on living on your own. I don’t know what you eat, or what happened until someone calls or if you calls me to tell me about your health.”

“Hyung, I live in the dormitory building. There’s guard guarding the perimeter,” Kai argues, finding it quite nonsense when Joonmyeon have been stressing himself out with such small issues. Joonmyeon sighs, “Without a roommate.” 

Kai didn’t bother to say anything because he knows his brother is right. It’s not he have any choice. Most students prefer to live outside, or for most cases, refuses to have a roommate at all. And Kai didn’t mind the silence that his apartment is providing. Baekhyun lives on his level, and the smaller male always at home before midnight. So, he could have just ask him for help, yet, he didn’t because being with Baekhyun make him uncomfortable. The said male is too prying for his own good. While Joonmyeon lives five levels upstairs with this lanky guy who majors in Business. He really didn’t want to be a burden to his brother. 

They have been living together since their parents passes away, and Joonmyeon is the only sole family he have left. Being the older, Joonmyeon have taken the responbility to be the parent’s figure to his small brother. And as time passes by, Kai have grown custom to be alone. He learns how to stand on his two feet instead of leaning onto his brother anymore. 

Joonmyeon are remorse.

Dissapointed that he no longer hold a signifant hold as Kai’s only pillar, but he learned to get used to Kai’s distance personality. How the younger usually flinches when someone get too close to his personal space and his monotone voice when he’s talking to stranger. And slowly, their bonds are back to normal. Though Kai never speaks a lot when they’re together, the younger make sure to inform the older if there’s a big event happening in his life, or just random pictures of what Kai have come across that day. 

“Let’s get you to bed, little.” 

Kai pouts at the endearment name, “I’m not.”

Joonmyeon didn’t heed to his complain, gesturing the younger male to get out from the stool so he could get ready to sleep. 

 

 

 

THE APARTMENT BUILDING, 20TH OF JULY. 

It have been three days since the last nightmare he had. And things have gone back to normal. Joonmyeon also have agrees to let him go back to his own room, with a promise to call him before he went to bed. Or a simple text would do, so the older knows that there’s nothing wrong. 

Kai is waiting for his ham sandwich and juice to be prepares at the small café that’s near their dormitory building when the dean calls him, informing him of a new roommate. Thanking the dean, he ends the calls as he stares on the blank screen. 

Excited? Kai wasn’t so sure. He could only hope that his roommate wouldn’t be someone like Baekhyun, or just equally weird. Because he really don’t want to spend half of his semesters with someone who he couldn’t be comfortable with. 

After picking up his order from the pick up tray, Kai beams at the waiter in gratitude before making his way back to his room. He have few notes to revise due to his absence. And some new chapters to study over so he won’t be left behind, since sadly, he really don’t have anyone close to ask for a note to borrow. 

Unlocking his door, he unbuckles his sneakers and dashes toward the kitchen, wondering when will the new roommate will arrive. But a small package wraps in a thin brown ropes comes in view when he is about to munch the half of the sandwich. Putting the treat down, he pulls the package closer, already curious to how it manage to be there.

Probably Jongdae since he and Joonmyeon who have the extra keys to this apartment unit. Baekhyun didn’t accept the key when he offers to him, telling him to save it. See how weird he is? 

Gently, he unties the nicely done ribbon, afraid of having it ruin and unwraps the brown wrappers around the box. 

Inside, it’s a simple brown stripped box with a plain lid with a shade darker. It have the vintage vibe surrounds the box, looking all mysterious and a piece of note laying prettily on top of the lid. 

Forever engraved for your beauty,  
to my dearest wife,  
Kim Jongin.

His blinks for couple of times, making sure of the letters inscript on note are exactly what he have read.

It didn’t changes. 

The person’s penmanship are beautiful, the curve of each letter looks like it belongs together and the note looks a bit old, and smells like those papers that he encounters at old rent and read bookstore. And it make him grows more anxious, excited to take a look inside the box. It have his name, but the indicator that the person who send the gift was supposed to give it to his wife, instead of an Engineering major student, something is surely not right. Added to the fact how the box even get in here.

He send a brief text to both his brother and Jongdae asking them if they put a present box in his kitchen before putting his phone back on the counter stop, back to stare at the said gift. Seconds later, his phone vibrates. Joonmyeon responds to his text that reads shortly about how he didn’t know anything about it. 

I was at the counsil office the whole morning. And I don’t think there’s a package for you at the office. Someone would have told me. So, it might be someone you know because it’s not me. I don’t know. Maybe Jongdae?

But Jongdae haven’t reply anything to his text. And there’s a single tick on his chat bubble. 

Didn’t want to wait any longer, he have a hunch that maybe Jongdae is playing a prank on him, Kai pulls the box closer and he lifts up the lid carefully. 

Inside, there are piles of polaroid photos stacked up together in a bundle. And all those photos are turn backwards so Kai didn’t know what kind of photos there are. Excitement runs down his veins when he imagines how pretty those photos would turn out and how he have always wanted polaroid photos so he could decorate his walls, he picks one of the polaroid and turns them over. 

It's a picture of a woman, with half of her features are covered by her flying hairs. It look aesthetically pleasing, with the structure of buldings as the background as she stands there, laughing. Kai raises his eyebrows, but his curiosity asks him to flip more – to pick up all the polaroid and check them out. The second picture didn’t change much, still the same woman with a wide smiles spread across her soft feautures, eyes crinkling in amusement as she’s holding a bouquet of red roses in her embrace. Every piece of the photos are photography worthy, like the person who took the said pictures knows the exact angles and times to snap the perfect candid shots. And at the end of polaroid frame, there were lines of poem – love confession or sort been written on its. 

As he flips through the pictures, Kai realises that the woman looks exactly like him. If not for the feminine traits that differs them both, Kai could have think that the one in the picture is himself. It was enchanting. He can feels the love, and the effection been put in each frames with how those words beautifully written. And he wonders if the woman knows about the picture and the poems. 

Slowly, through the passing of more beautiful pictures of the woman laughing, the atmosphere starts to change when Kai flips to the next picture. 

There is no longer a smile. She looks incredibly upset. Though it didn’t really show in her features, but Kai can feels it with the how her lips is set into a straight line, eyes emotionlessly stares toward the horizon, as if there’s no one around her. The next picture stays the same. But instead, she looks sick. 

He didn’t feel good, so he continues to flip through pictures without staring at it, not until he catch a glimpse of another smiling face but there’s none. The last picture in his hands. There’s six more in the box and his heart cleanch if those pictures ended up in another upset, solemn her. 

He cautiously flips the last one in his grips, and he froze in his seat. 

Instead of the same woman decorating the whole frame, there’s only hand. Her hand that are bare from any clothes to cover the exposed skins laying there in a pool of red. Kai could even sees the color of her fingernails coated in a shade of pale pink but it was stained with the blood. 

By instinct, he drops the polaroid and messily rumages through the box to pick up the remaining six. 

The first last picture is a picture of her laying on the cold ground, eyes closes with her hairs laid nicely around her. There are roses petal around her, on top of her hair and everywhere. And the words written under it are curt and simple, Even the roses couldn’t be compare to your beauty. 

He feels sick all of the sudden, but he forces himself to flip to another piece. 

Her lifeless body is craddle in someone’s embrace. Someone who’s bigger than her. The person’s muscular arms are caressing the side of her pale cheeks, smears with blood. Kai couldn’t see the guy ( he assumes ) face because the angle didn’t allowed him to see more than it suppose to show. But the ring that the guy wears looked the identical as the one she was wearing. And his heart cleanched. 

Did…he killed her?

But he didn’t stops there. The curiosity that seeps in his vein is hard to ignore. Although, the thought of the male killed her sickens Kai to no end, but he could also be wrong. There are lot of possibilities. And he really don’t want his thought to be true. Somehow, he feels betrays, if it turn out to be true. Not wanting to dwell on too much with his assumptions, Kai flips the next picture. 

And he’s face with nothing but a black frame with a cut-out magazine piece that spells; “You’re next.” 

Confuses, he continues to flip to the next one in haste. He really have a bad feeling about it.

In the frame, there’s him, bending over the counter top with the box opens. Inside his grips, he’s holding one of the polaroid and the others scatters messily in front of him, just like what he is doing at the moment. It couldn’t be stages, or could it be someone else. It’s even impossible for someone to take his photo in any circumstances and the polaroid will magically pops up amongst the piles of the others polaroid without having someone to put it together. 

By reflex, he frantically looks around in alert. 

But there’s nothing out of place. Even his windows are seal shut. 

Kai turns his gaze back to the scatters polaroids on the counter top, wondering if he should keep going through them. Wondering if he’s ready to face what’s next inside the polaroid. He didn’t know if he should freak out or not, what he supposes to do in this kind of situation. All of these while, he have never stumble upon a situation where he’s needed to feel anything more than panic with his surroundings. He’s compose, he knows how to deal with his problems well but now…he couldn’t even decipher what’s going on.   
Pushing all the sane thoughts aside, he flips the remaining polaroid and arrange them side by side. And true to his hunch, there are him in every photos in different scenarios. There’s even one where he was in alarm, looking around. And it didn’t even passes five minutes since that happens. There’s no one around. While the next photos got him in alert, when he sees himself in the polaroid, laying on floor. His throat are being slits opens, and his arms lays lifelessly in the pool of his own blood like the one with the woman that looks like him ends up in the end. But, instead of having someone to craddle him like the woman, there’s a masked figure fills the last frame, looking straight into the camera with a crooked grins plaster across the hole that shows his thin lips. The masked figure was standing beside his dead body, holding up the knife. 

Initiatively, he flails away from the counter top as if it burns his flesh. But, Kai is stumbles on the stool behinds him, and he ends up on the floor, crawling backward, away from the counter top. His eyes are blown wide and his heart is beating so fast, that he starts to feel unsafe in his own house. Of course he watches horror movies before and jumpscare are stupid, but this is not some kind of a horror movies in the screen. 

The last picture freaks him out. 

His chest heaves up and down, as he stares at the counter top where all the scatters polaroid are laying there idly. Kai counts to ten, trying to soothe him down, consoling himself that maybe this is just a prank. Yet, it didn’t work when his palm feels something against it. 

He turns his face to look down on his own arms, straight to his palm.

There’s another polaroid photo. 

And he didn’t know where did it come from. That maybe it stuck on his palm before and Kai didn’t realizes it. With shaky hands, he pulls the polaroid off from his palm and flips it over. 

This time, there’s no him. Only the masked figure, and he looks like he’s hiding beside the refrigerator, smiling that same creepy grins. The tanned male blinks his eyes. His breaths are growing shorts, as his eyes catches another three new polaroid flips over in front of him, away from each other as if they’re making Kai to crawl back to the counter top – inside the kitchen area.

Alarm bells are ringing in the back of his mind, but his curiosity are way stronger than his wiser side. He is dying to look at the pictures, desperate to know what’s going on. Kai have a gist of what he will face when he stares at he photo. He knows. But he crawls over toward the rest of the pictures.

The polaroid consists of him crawling back to the kitchen, holding onto the picture. It seems like the polaroid are showing everything that he did at the moment and it’s impossible, no matter how his head try to rack his mind to think of the posibility how this happen in the first place. There’s no such thing as magic, and he don’t want to entertain the idea of having his unit be haunt by something. So, he turns his head to look at the last photo, but he stops. 

His ear catches a small sound coming from his kitchen. Yet, he couldn’t see what is it because his whole body is hide by the counter top. And he’s too afraid to stand up. There’s only one left, and suddenly, Kai refuses to take a glimpse of its. 

He needs to run. 

Then, he hears it. 

The sounds of someone’s chuckling, and the sounds of someone dragging the tips of a knife against the marbled top of his counter. His head starts to hurt, and Kai want to cry. His adrenaline are pumping down, and his whole body is shivering in fear. 

“Jongin-ah,” 

The masked figure appears in front of him in a blink and he couldn’t calculate anything else because he screams. 

He closes his eyes, shaking his head as he screams hysterically. Tears starts to run down his cheeks due to the intense fear. And before he knows it, the front door to his apartment unit are slams opens. Sehun rushes into the scene, appears with a panic striken face with Baekhyun in tolls. The taller male rushes toward Kai who is apparently wrenching on the floor as he screams, trying to pull Kai’s hands away from his face. As Baekhyun stands frozen by the door, eyes stuck on the scatters polaroid on the floor and on the counter top. 

Sehun grits onto his teeth, when the tanned male breaks into a heart-clenching sobs, “Hey, I’m here,” he whispers. He tries to shush the crying male but Kai refuses to stop. His face are turning red, and Sehun grips onto both of the smaller male’s shoulder before shaking it violently. 

“Wake up,” he shouts. Sehun wouldn’t want to scream to the smaller male’s face but he had too and it seems to work, because Kai stops thrashing around. His body lays weak in Sehun’s grip, and the taller pulls him to his chest – running comforting hands behind Kai’s back.

Sehun could hears the ragged breaths of the smaller male in his embrace, as he looks at Baekhyun for help but the said male are busy crouching down to pick up the rest of the polaroids on the floor. He heaves out a breath, glancing down at Kai, only to realize that Kai have faints. 

 

 

It was crowded. 

The halls are packed with peoples in fancy suits and lacey expensive looking dresses adorns with too many shining beads and strings of big pearls necklaces. The soft R&B music that resonates the entire halls are the only decent things that Jongin could enjoy that night. Everything just screams suffocations. She never been in such event, but things have to take a turn of change since she married one of the Oh’s lineage. One things of many that she have to get uses to one day. 

Jongin didn’t consider herself fortunate, not when she have to drop everything for the sake of her husband. She feels like a doll in making, and this event is making herself grows anxious as times passes by. Sehun are nowhere to be found, and it have been a solid thirty minutes of standing like a sore thumbs in a middle of strangers who keep sending her looks that made her shivers down to her spine. 

She feels exposes. And she want to bolt out from the room.

But Sehun’s words rangs in her head. Everyone in the hall are particularly his potencial clients and his former one, so she have to maintain his name. In short, Sehun was expecting her to behave, but how could she, really? Her lips are seal tight into a straight line, forehead slightly furrows when she breaths in the air that reeks of expensive eau de colognes. Her head is getting dizzy, sensitive to the smells. Yet, she tries to hold it in, for the sake of Sehun’s, at least. 

It last while it last, until Sehun comes in view, taking the empty spot beside her. His palms finds it way to press on her back gently, as they walks around the halls, greeting the rest of the guests. 

“You okay?” he asks in concerns, but his eyes are darting forward. His lips curls into that polite smile, and Jongin stares. She is pondering if she should. 

“I-“ and her words are rudely been cut off when a female guest breaks into their conversation while holding up the wine glass, twirling it in her hands. 

She nods at Jongin, before exchanging her attention to the male in between them. 

“Sehun!” she exclaims, too sweet for Jongin’s taste. Jongin tries to walk away, but the grip on her waist stops her on track. Sehun also nods to acknowledge the woman, “Hera-ssi.”

She giggles, flipping her black hair swiftly, “Oh, don’t be too formal. We’re partner anyway.”

Sehun clears his throat, and Jongin feels biles crawling up her throat. 

“Business partner, Hera-ssi.”

And the Hera woman didn’t know how to give up. She pats Sehun’s forearms, one that’s free from Jongin’s waist before trailing her manicure fingers down his arms. “Well, notheless, still a partner.”

Jongin could feels every inch of her body boiling in anger, seeing how Sehun didn’t even bother to push the woman’s hands away. She didn’t meant to be possesive, but it’s really not nice to see another woman flirting blatantly with your husband in your presence. Sehun obviously knows of her little crush towards him, and yet, he- 

“I need to go to the toilet,”

“I’ll go with you. Hera-ssi, if you excuse us.” 

Sehun pulls her away from Hera, and Jongin didn’t miss the cressfallen expressions that plaster across that Hera’s face. She want to laugh, but her mood is spoil over that small matter. It’s childish, and Jongin mentally scolds herself, didn’t notice how Sehun have guide her toward the vacant hallways. 

He stands in front of him, scrutinizing her. Jongin keep her mouth seals shut. 

“You’re not comfortable around here, aren’t you?”

Jongin locks eyes with the man in front of her. And she sees a string of concern, but it is gone in a flash. Like she just imagine those things. Why did they even get married in the first place, really? She drifts her eyes anywhere else except for Sehun, prolonging the silence. She don’t know how to explain things, and Jongin think it’s quite obvious to Sehun that she’s uncomfortable. Being someone who’s rarely uses words to express things, Jongin is struggling inside. There’s a reason why she chooses photography in the first place as her dream career. 

Now that she have left everything behind, she been bottling things inside. 

Sehun is nice when he tries to be one, but Jongin wishes the male could understand her a bit more. It’s not like they just meet each other yesterday. It have been years. Although before they’re not in the terms to be that close friends, but if Jongin could figures how Sehun works at most of the times, then why did Sehun have to always force her to use her words? 

In the end, she mumbles out a simple, “I’m fine.” Sehun didn’t take it too well, whether he can see through the lies, but he didn’t show it. They got back to the hall, and Sehun didn’t let her go for even a minute. He greets every passing guests, making empty talks. Making sure that he tells Jongin who are them and their positions they held. And Jongin grows agiated by seconds. Confuses, half part of its. Because, is this on purpose? 

Her head spins, trying to keep up with names of the guests, when Sehun leans down dangerously close to her earlobe to whiper them out. His grip around her waist feels trapped all of sudden, and it seems like Sehun is trying to get on her nerve for some reason. If he did, he’s really doing a pretty good job. It’s like they’re playing a chase game to see who break first, and Sehun whispering names to her ears no longer meants what she think it is. He’s trying to make her squirms in uncomfortable, waiting for her to express that out but Jongin won’t back up just like that. 

Times drag on, and Jongin really need to get away from her husband’s grip. 

But, Sehun won’t let her go. 

It continues. He leans down, getting closer, even to the point of bitting her earlobe in front of the guests. That if they did sees that, they’re good at pretending that there’s nothing happens. Jongin’s face turns crimson. And Sehun takes that as a cue to excuse themselves. 

 

 

During the ride to home, neither Jongin or Sehun says anything. It’s tense. 

Jongin cluthes on her knees, gripping onto them with her nails digs into her flesh. Tonight is a disaster and she wants to go back home and take a shower and sleep. She’s dissapointed, but half part of it is her fault too. She should have say something, but how? Is she suppose to just blurt out how she hate the gala when obviously, Sehun is like the most important person in there and his wife suddenly announces, who as a bonus is actually a nobody, that the gala is stupid. 

She didn’t notices that they have arrives, because Sehun didn’t say anything. He leave her to fetch on herself, walking out from the car toward the elavator. And he wasn’t there in the elavator, so Jongin take it that Sehun must have already went inside their apartment without her. 

She sighs, when the elavator dings loudly, interupting her thoughts to inform her that she’s on their level already. Jongin walks out from there, as she takes off her earings off and put them inside her purse. It’s tiring, really. Jongin didn’t even want to think of why Sehun walks off like that, whether he is dissapointed in her or not, it doesn’t matter anymore because she’s upset with the said male too. 

As soon she steps in front of their door, Jongin looks hesitants. Her thoughts are divided in two, whether she should come in or not. Couple hours alone sounds nice, after all, she does need one. But, her dress would come in hassle. The weather didn’t look invitting either. With how the thin laces of the upper top of her black dress are thins. And her flaunted bottom dresses that flows down to her legs, high knees middle splits also didn’t look appropriate enough for her to stay outside for long. 

Pushing all thoughts away, she inserts the passkey into the lock pad before stepping insise. She have expected Sehun to already be inside. Still, she’s greeted with the darkness of their apartment. 

Jongin is about to turn on the light when someone pushes her harshly against the front door, and a hand finds itself on her throat. She couldn’t even blinks in response when the person crushes their lips together into a forced kiss. He bites onto her lower lips without mercy and Jongin gasps in surprise. 

The male breaks the kisses, allowing a string of saliva connecting both of their lips, when he darkly chuckles, seeing how she reacts. 

Sehun. His hands crawls up closer to cup her chin in his tight grips, nudging them upward to face his furious face. And Jongin wildly stares back, finding back her strength to try push his hands away from her face, both hands holds onto Sehun’s wrist. 

The male breaths out to her face, Jongin flinches. “Tell me, do you know how to talk, Jongin?”

Jongin didn’t even reply, merely stares back as if challenging the male. And it tick him off. 

“Answer me.” 

Jongin puts more strength in her hands, trying to push his hands away but Sehun is back to choke her back against the door. “I asked you. Yet, you lied to me,” he snarls harshly, his pupils are dillated. And Jongin shakes her head, out of breath. 

“I would have stop the gala and we can go home. I would walk out from there if you ask me,” he spits. His face is so close to her. “But, you choose to lie instead. Don’t you know how to use your words when someone make you uncomfortable?” 

Jongin breaks into a sob, and Sehun stops. He pulls the female into his arms, caressing her back. “See what happens when you keep silent, Jongin. I can’t read your mind. People can take advantages of your silent. And you’re lucky it’s me. But other people won’t hesitate to do anything to you.” She nods, latching herself into his arms. She is drains.   
Sehun shushes her down, pulling her into their room. 

 

 

Jongin puts her camera down. It’s another weekend without Sehun because the male have an important lunch date with one of his potencial client. And she don’t want to tag along. 

After the incident, with the gala and all, Jongin tries to change, but it’s hard when she’s too use in taking order. She’s raises not to say no, and complains when someone asks for a favor even if it cause her discomfort. Heck, she didn’t have the right to make any sounds. Jongin is use to it for years, and suddenly, she have to break out from her principle. It will take time and she can’t even guarentee if she can. 

It’s already passes eleven. And she needs to get home. 

Jongin already text Sehun about her whereabouts. He didn’t reply anything to it, but he read her text. There’s nothing to reply too. As long he give her permissions, then Jongin will take everything gladly. She have misses her gallery so much. The adrenaline that pumps through her vein when she have an inspiration to draw or to snap a shot of something. 

It’s the only way that can soothe her down. With maybe an exception of Sehun. As much as she loathe how Sehun handle her sometimes, she tries to understand her. Sehun can be pretty bad at trying to express her worry. Other people would have think badly about him. 

Smiling, she traces the polaroid collections that Sehun gifted to him. It was pictures of her in a candid shots. Mostly pictures of her laughing over some stuff. And Jongin could give him a credit for such talent to take such pleasingly aesthetics pictures because she never knew she will look nice in a candid shot but Sehun did justice in every pictures. There were even few short poems from him written under the frame. 

Jongin puts them back carefully inside a box when she hears keys jiggles at the front door of her gallery. And Sehun comes in view with a bouquet of roses. 

He smiles, “Let’s go home, baby.” 

She abandons the box and rushes toward her husband, looking flabbergasted to see him in her gallery. “You should have call if you want to come!” 

Sehun shrugs and he tucks her hair behind her ears, “It’s okay. I don’t want to interupt your alone time. But isn’t it time to go home now? I miss you.” 

“I am about to,” Jongin mumbles out, cheeks red as she smells the bouquets in her hands. 

“I’ll wait for you outside, okay. Hurry up.” She nods in responds and watches as Sehun playfully bows before walking out from the premise. 

Jongin shakes her head at Sehun’s antics and went to put the bouquet beside the box on the table. She reaches out for her bag to put her camera inside when the lights went off. Caught in surprises, Jongin abandons her bag to fumble around her jeans to search for her phone. 

She presses the torch open and quickly packs her belonging when a sound of a vase collides down on the floor fills in the empty gallery. Growing anxious, she decides to just left her things behind and run outside where Sehun must be waiting for her. It must be the cat, but she’s afraid. 

Her heart is thumping wildly, her eyes roams to the dark area with the help of her torch. But someone pulls her from behind and she screams. Her phone falls to the ground and they struggles, the attacker are wearing a creepy mask, one that was in a horror movie that she watches one time with Sehun. He is trying to trap her and Jongin, in her state of panic, continue to struggle as she screams for Sehun’s name. 

Jongin scratches the attacker’s mask, ignoring if it won’t hurt him or not because of the mask to divert attentions of the attacker on her hands before she delivers a punch on the attacker’s jaw, and the male growls in pain. Without any hesitations, she make a dash toward the front door but when she tries to pull the door open, it is locked. She twists the knobs for couple of times, sobbing. She kicks the door, hoping that Sehun would hears him. Instead, she feels a horrendous pain on her abdomen, and she releases her hold on the knob. 

The attacker pulls out the knife, and Jongin would have loses her balance to the floor if not for the attacker’s muscular arms that holds her by her waists. He stabs her again in her ribs, and he continues to stab her until her body lays lifelessly in his hold. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Jongin, breaths,” Baekhyun howls, slapping the male’s face. Sehun already looks distress when Kai starts to cry in his unconsious state. 

Suddenly, Kai’s breath turns shorts as if he’s choking and Baekhyun laughs nervously. The shorter male turns his head toward Sehun to ask for help. And Sehun merely stares back.


	3. Chpt III (i)

SEOUL HOSPITAL, 20TH OF JULY.

“What happen?” Joonmyeon weakly asks. His hands are caressing the top of his brother’s hands gently, never taking his eyes away from the sleeping figure. There is an oxygen mask connected through Kai’s face, and few wires that is slowly becoming an eye sore in Joonmyeon’s eyes because he loathe how his brother looks so frail at the moment. The doctor is not around when he comes, after he rushes out from his class with a tear stricken face. 

Sehun rubs his face, before shaking his head. Even the taller male have no idea of what happens. All that registers in his head are he’s about to unlock the door to the apartment to move in when he hears Kai’s screaming inside the apartment and Baekhyun barges out from his door, looking equally surprised. And the shorter male is nowhere in sight, probably went to the cafeteria to fetch drinks for Joonmyeon, seeing how the older looks like he’s one minute away from passing out too. 

Joonmyeon sighs, putting Kai’s hands back on the bed. “Just what’s wrong with you, really,” he mumbles to no one in particular but it didn’t escapes Sehun’s hearing. 

“He’ll be fine, hyung,” he tries to comfort the older. Joonmyeon sends him a grateful smile, and is about to say something when the ward door opens, revealling a middle aged man, wearing a white coat. The said man nods to both of the male in the room, “I’m Yuan, the doctor in charge.” 

Joonmyeon stands up from his seat, as Sehun shakes his hands with the doctor. 

“How is my brother, doctor?” Joonmyeon asks, concerns all over his face and the doctor gently beams up at him. He puts his hands in his coats, “Yes, about that.”   
Joonmyeon legs feels weak all of sudden. And the urge to cry is increasing, but the doctor seem to sense the distress coming out from him so, he waves his hands out, “Don’t worry, he should be fine.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Sehun interupts. 

The doctor glances up at Kai, who’s laying on the bed, before looking back at both standing male in front of him, “He is having trouble with breathing, that just all. But,”

Joonmyeon is back to feel jittery, as he lets out his words rather loudly than he intends it to be, “There’s a but?”

The doctor sends him an apologetic looks, “We have a quick scan over his body and there’s something that I don’t understand. There were deep wounds around his abdomen.” He stops his explanation. He excuses himself to take the patient’s record on the table, flipping through few pages until he finds a smaller copy of the x-tray outcomes. “If you see here,” he points to the picture, where there are large gashes runs across them. “This looks like a stabbed wounds. And not only that,” Doctor Yuan expresses, face contort in what seem to be confusions. He points out to all of the gashes inside the picture to Joonmyeon. “Six of them and if this is a normal stabbing case, Mr Kim will be dead by now.”

“But he didn’t” Sehun, once again, interupts as he snarls out the words. He raises his eyebrows, as if to challenge the doctor to say more, when Joonmyeon awkwardly laughs. Joonmyeon turns back to the doctor, playing with his fingers. “How is he? Will he be fine?” 

“As I say, Mr. Kim. He should be fine. Just need lot of rest because of the wounds. And we need to make few more check up on him. Until that, he need to be hospitalized.”  
Joonmyeon thanks the doctor before sending the man off. Closing the ward door, he sighs. He leans onto the door, crossing both of his arms to his chest. 

“What the hell is going on, really?” he mumbles out in frustation. And Sehun didn’t say anything either because he don’t know what else to say. Their situation are unknowns until Kai wakes up. Since how he is the only person who knows what happens. 

Joonmyeon sits back on the chair beside Kai’s bed when Sehun suddenly remembers back of the box that was on top of the kitchen counter and the polaroid photos that scatters all over the floor when he and Baekhyun barged inside the unit. 

 

( Previously from chapter II – Sehun’s flashback. ) 

“Jongin, breaths,” Baekhyun howls, slapping the male’s face. Sehun already looks distress when Kai starts to cry in his unconsious state. 

Suddenly, Kai’s breath turns shorts as if he’s choking and Baekhyun laughs nervously. The shorter male turns his head toward Sehun to ask for help. And Sehun merely stares back. 

He couldn’t think of anything. Not when his attentions are soley focusing on the unconsious male in front of him. Baekhyun heaves out a loud sigh, seeing the unresponsive Sehun. Taking out his phone, he dials out the ambulances – walking out from the scene to talk, that’s it before sending eyes signal to Sehun to look after the tanned male.   
It was ten minutes after, the ambulance comes and took Kai away with a stretcher, down to the lobby. Baekhyun rushes along with them, phone still in hand to dial Joonmyeon’s number. Leaving Sehun behind in the apartment. 

It was silent, as he looks around the space. There were nothing that stood up the most. All of the furniture were neither plainly plain, or Sehun is expecting something. The living room was clean, aside from the beige coat that hungs against the sofa. 

He continues to look around, when he stops at the scattered polaroid pictures on the floor, and around the counter top where there was an unfinished sandwiches lays on the paper bag. Sehun bends down to pick up the said pictures and froze when he stares at the outcome of the pictures. He picks up the rest of them, looking through the pictures.

“What the hell?” he mumbles, eyes gazing through the pictures of the masked man. Thinking that it was absolutely unacceptable to be playing pranks like this, considering how Kai seems to react to it was not good at all. He looks through the rest of the pictures, and Sehun swears, his head almost burst with all the odd similarities that the woman and Kai had. And the last picture, of the woman lying dead in her blood makes all of his hair went up before he gathers everything and put them back inside the box. 

He needs to tell about the picture to Joonmyeon. 

 

( Back to present ) 

Sehun pulls his bag to his lap, zipping them open and it manages to grab the attention of Joonmyeon, who’s trying to keep his eyes open. It’s ten in the evening, and Baekhyun still aren’t around. Sehun thought he would have wait for the shorter male to come in the ward before telling Joonmyeon about it, but it have been hours. And he have no heart to hide things any longer. 

He takes out the box carefully and looks up to Joonmyeon. The older male have already stares at him with question eyes. So, he sighs, handing the box to the male. Joonmyeon takes them from his grip, inspecting the said box.

“What is this?” he asks, balancing the bottom of the box against his thighs. 

Sehun motions for the older male to open up the box, but Joonmyeon looks alarms. 

“We found the polaroid inside the box scatters around the floor,”

Joonmyeon raises his hands, cutting Sehun off from his words and Sehun look taken aback by the sudden action, but he didn’t say anything. 

“Is this the box he was talking about?” he mumbles. His fingers trace the lid of the box, as Sehun seals his mouth, decides that it’s better for the older male to look at the pictures on his own. He watches as Joonmyeon opens the box and look through the pictures with varies expressions. Each pictures with different emotions splaster across his pale face and that just it, before he puts all of them inside the box with a more confused look. 

Sehun raises his eyebrows,”The picture must have trigger him to scream.”

Joonmyeon shakes his head,”Nonsense. How could pictures of woman that look like him makes him go nuts like this? And how did it explain about the wounds?” 

“What-“ Sehun is at loss of words, “It’s not just the woman, hyung. The pictures of him. That creepy masked man-“

“There’s no masked man picture in here,” Joonmyeon argues and Sehun snatches the box, going through the pictures to search for the said pictures. As soon he finds it, he holds the pictures up for the older male to see but instead of an expected horror expression that he get, Joonmyeon looks more like a deer in the headlight, forehead furrows in frown.

“What?” he questions, pulling the picture out from Sehun’s grip. He tries to squint his eyes to search for any masked man inside the frame but he couldn’t find any. There is nothing wrong with the picture. It’s merely a picture of a kitchen top. In fact, most of the pictures inside the box are mostly harmless. And he just didn’t understand why Sehun inpose that it was the trigger why Kai fainted in the first place. 

He sighs, holding on the picture. “You better not be playing joke around me, Sehun-ah.”

The younger raises his arms in defeat. Sehun knows better not to argue with Joonmyeon at times like this. So, he excuses himself to walk outside from the ward for fresh air.   
Turns out, Baekhyun is sitting at the waiting area the whole time, where most family members of the patients in the hospital are occupied, especially those who’re not allows to be in the ward. The smaller male is flipping through a coin in his fingers, eyes boring hole to the said thing. Baekhyun didn’t even notice him when Sehun approaches the empty seat beside him. 

“Why didn’t you come inside?” Sehun asks, glancing at the male beside him. 

Baekhyun shrugs, still flipping on the coins. He continues to keep his mouth seals, and Sehun chooses to fill the silent with the game that he have installed in his phone. It’s awkward. He are not even close to any of them, yet he have involved himself more than he have bargains. Sehun stil have boxes to unpack, assignments to get down with, yet he choose to stay at the hospital, waiting for someone who happens to faint on him once, and now, his roommate. 

He sighs, leaning onto the sofa. And at that time, Baekhyun have put down the coins. The smaller male glances at him, “I heard you’re trying to tell Joonmyeon about the picture when I was abou to come in earlier.” 

“Why didn’t you?” Sehun questions back, and Baekhyun stares at him with that face that’s trying to ask if Sehun even serious when he asks that questions. But, he didn’t ponder on that as Baekhyun rolls his eyes. 

Baekhyun drums his fingers against his thigh and Sehun clucks his tongue in annoyance, “What’s the probability of me tossing coins and not get a head?” 

Sehun gives him an unreadable expressions, confuses with the conversation that they’re having but Baekhyun is raising his eyebrows, waiting for an answer. 

“Infinity. I don’t know? Never? Once?”

Baekhyun shrugs, “There, you have it.”

“What?”

“If I come in, you will ask me to confirm the picture of that man in the picture and what is the probability of having Joonmyeon trust in either both of our words? Me against you, who happen to be the new addition in our group, when, in fact, he couldn’t see what we see,” he concluded, not even bothers to give Sehun a proper glance. 

With that, their conversation ends. Sehun don’t want to push the other although part of him is dying to know if Baekhyun sees what he sees in the pictures too. Like, Baekhyun did imply he did, maybe be indirectly admit it to Sehun but the truth is, who knows. Since smaller male have refuses to say anything anymore and they opt to stay that way – not talking, until Baekhyun fells asleep while waiting.

Sehun couldn’t get a wink of sleep. His minds are busy trying to rack the equations regarding the pictures. How could it be possible to put a picture of someone that they’re targetting in the same time they’re doing the said thing that the picture show? Kai must have been wondering about the same thing too, seeing how in the picture, he was looking around his apartment unit while holding the polaroid. Sehun could imagine the dread that was coming from an unknown source, clueless of what’s coming. But, what is it that make Kai screamed in the first place? Maybe Joonmyeon is right, partially, that the pictures won’t be enough reason for Kai to react that way. There must be something that happened in the apartment that Kai knew that neither any of them knows. 

Tired of himself, with how every questions that floats in his head turns out to be a dead end when he didn’t meet with any possible answers, Sehun stands up from the waiting couch to buy himself an instant coffee from the vending machine when Joonmyeon appears. 

Joonmyeon still looks weary, and Sehun winces mentally at the state of older. “You look like you have been hit by a truck,” he comments off-handed. Joonmyeon laughs, “I might be,” before he continues, “I thought you already went back to the apartment.” 

“Figure that I can wait,” Sehun replies, and Joonmyeon smiles at that. 

He pats Sehun’s forearms, “Coffee?”

Sehun nods his head and signals the older to lead the way toward the cafeteria. They spends the rest of the ungodly hours talking. And Sehun concludes that Joonmyeon is actually someone who’s easy to talk with. Joonmyeon opens up about their family situation, and his worries about his little brother conditions. So, Sehun tries to comfort Joonmyeon by telling him that perhaps, Kai is going through a phase where stress is starting to build up in his systems – “Who knows, hyung. Try to talk to him later.” 

They returns to the ward at four, when Joonmyeon have asks Sehun not to stay up and he can go back to the apartment if he needs to. He promises he will call Sehun immedietly if Kai wakes up tomorrow, but Sehun declines. He could sleep at the waiting area with Baekhyun. And Joonmyeon have no choice but to agreed. 

 

 

 

“Look at the pictures, hyung.” Kai’s hoarse voice are pleading, eyes watery as he forces Joonmyeon to go through the polaroid for the nth times that morning. And the older male is starting to grow anxious with how his brother’s behaving. It wasn’t even passes three hours since he woke up, yet the moment his eyelids flutters open, Kai already having difficulty to breath as he alarmly look around him as if someone is about to attack him any minutes. 

Joonmyeon had to grip onto the younger’s shoulder tighly, shaking him a bit as he tries to talk it out to Kai that he’s safe. But Kai refuses to stay put. He is crying, pointing his fingers toward the box that is sitting idly on the table besides him. 

Joonmyeon really don’t have any heart to refuse so he reluctantly agreeds, going through the pictures another time when the others comes in. 

Kai’s attentions perks out at the sudden visittors and visibly went tense when he sees Sehun, but Jongdae comes rushing to his side, “Oh god, are you crying?”   
Joonmyeon sighs, handing over the pictures to Jongdae. “What is it?”

Kai have his eyes locks with Sehun, ignoring the gushes of whispers exchanged from Joonmyeon to Jongdae about the pictures. Until Sehun breaks their eye contacts, “Kai was right. I saw the masked man too in the picture. Ask Baekhyun-hyung, I’m sure he saw it too.”

Everyone looks at the said smaller man, waiting for Baekhyun’s confirmation. But, Baekhyun didn’t say anything, merely stares back at Sehun for turning the attention on him. 

“There’s no masked man. Now, stop. It just pictures,”

“How could you say it just pictures?” Kai interjects, voice waverings. “There’s-“ 

“Look, you just woke up, Nini. Stop stressing yourself out,” Joonmyeon stresses out, clearly, the situation are getting out of hands. Instead of answers, he is meet with another questions. The pictures that Kai asked him to look over looked perfectly normal to him, even Jongdae confirmed it for him too so why Kai claimed it wasn’t? Even Sehun look convinced that there were wrong with the pictures. While Baekhyun looked lost in the middle. 

Their conversation stops there. Joonmyeon have asked everyone to go home with an excuse of giving Kai a space to rest and Jongdae looks like he’s about to fight with the older. And Baekhyun, once again excuses himself out from the ward. So, Jongdae have pulls the older away from Kai’s bed to have a talk, away from the younger so Kai won’t listen, leaving Sehun with Kai. It wasn’t much of a better idea since Jongdae never really know how to keep his voice down. 

“I just arrives!” he harshly whispers, fingers points to Joonmyeon’s chest. Joonmyeon looks apologetic, but his decisions are final. He pats Jongdae’s shoulder, “I promise I’ll tell you right away if something happen again.”

“Yeah, promise me that again,” Jongdae points out, pouting. “And look where it got me now? I was the last person to know he was being hospitalized. Not by you or Baekhyun. But from someone else,” Jongdae partially screams by now, frustatated. 

Joonmyeon bites his lower lips, “It was all rushed, Dae.”

“At least a simple text would suffice, Joonmyeon. You better do that or else,” Jongdae threatens, leaving the dumbfounded Joonmyeon standing awkwardly by the corner of the rooms. 

 

 

Jongdae have went home earlier, after he is done pestering around Kai. He even questioned about Sehun’s presence, and the taller male obviously are not comfortable with Jongdae but Kai laughs it off, saying that Jongdae is always like that. And Joonmyeon also have excuse himself to went home to fetch few set of fresh clothes since Kai have to stay in the hospital for few more days so the doctors could keep their eyes on him. 

Sitting outside at the hospital’s park, opens air and night breeze, Kai takes in his surroundings. There’s no one around, except for few visitors who walks passes the area. There’s trees around, little colorful flowers planted arounds the small man made ponds at the center of the park. It’s pretty quite, and it have been a while. 

Sehun comes, handing him a cup of hot tea, “Your tea, three spoons of sugar as you have order.” 

Kai takes the cup as he sniffs on the smells on the freshly brews tea leaves inside his tea. It’s quite comforting, rather than the bitterness of the coffee that Sehun is having at the moment. 

They sits there, void of words. Sehun leans his body forward as Kai keeps his body snugly leans into the bench, lulling his head side to side. 

“Thanks again, though,” he whispers, after a while. Sehun hums, sipping onto the last drips of the coffee in his paper cups. “I don’t know why hyung couldn’t sees those pictures,” he wonders, putting his paper cup asides. 

Sehun heaves out his breaths, still not saying anything so Kai takes it as a sign to continue. “I thought it was a sick prank, you know. Jongdae always do that back when we dated each other.” And it manages to perks Sehun’s attention to voice out. “You and Jongdae dated?”

Jongin chuckles, nodding. “It’s hard to believe, but yea, we did. But still, I thought he was the one who put the box on the counter top since he didn’t replied to my text. But guess, it was not him.”

Sehun looks hesitates, and Kai laughs, “Spill it.”

“Why?” He utters out the single words, staring onto the vacantness in front of him. 

Kai takes times to reply and Sehun is slowly regretting his choice of words. 

“I saw him.”

Sehun freezes. 

“The pictures. I was crawling toward the picture when I heard someone dragged the knife against the counter top. Like, that eery scratching sounds you hear when a metal scraps against something, yea, that kind of sounds. And he called out my name, and I swear, I want to run but I can’t,” Kai takes in a deep breath, braving himself to keep on. Sehun didn’t moves too, and it’s worries the tanned male. Afraid that Sehun might thinks him crazy, so he quickly adds, “I’m not crazy, Sehun, I swear –“ 

“I believe you.”

Kai looks flabbergastes at the sudden declarations, blinking. Sehun shrugs, “Everything is impossible in this world, Jongin.”

And Kai didn’t asked how Sehun knows his real name, since he’s sure Joonmyeon didn’t called him that sincever. Neither does Jongdae because that shorter male prefers Kai more. Considering how the masked man also called him out with that name creeps him out but Sehun…He really don’t know why he didn’t say anything about it. His mind seems to stop functioning as he continues like he’s in daze, “I was scared. I thought I was going to die like in the polaroid pictures and he suddenly appeared in front of me, and…and...” He stutters on his words, breath shorts. Sehun quickly raises from his current position to pull Kai into his embrace, rubbing his hands up and down. 

“It’s okay. I’m here, you’re safe.”


	4. Chpt III (ii)

Kai wokes up with a clear mind the next day. And he’s back in his ward. All recollections of last night are out from the windows since he couldn’t bring himself to remember anything aside from Joonmyeon telling him that he need to go back to fetch clothes. His sights are still grodggy, clouded from the sleep, so he rubs his eyes in a poor attempt to wash away the sleepiness. It works, but his body still feels tired. And surprisingly, he didn’t wake up due to a nightmare. Just the normal wake up session he have always have, tired from oversleeping. 

His ward room are plainly empty with the exception of the roses bouquets and baskets full of milk chocolate jars that Jongdae have brought along yesterday. The hospital dull white blankets are exchanged with his own white and blue blankets, and Kai raises his eyebrows at that, thinking that probably Joonmyeon have overdone himself. It’s not like he’s going to permenantly stays inside here. There’s a brown coat lays on the table in front of him, with his medical board. A cup of leftover coffee from Starbucks and Kai shifts his gaze toward the sofa beside his bed. 

A tuff of jet hair come in his view, and long legs trying to cramp on the small sofa. It is such a sight, and Kai giggles. He slides over from his bed to walk toward Sehun when a gush of pain comes emerges from his rib and he falls on his feets, knocking over the rolling table and it manages to wake the sleeping male. 

“Jongin–“

Kai waves his hands to dismiss the concerns over him, shooting the now wake up male a guilty smile. “I was about to wake you up,” he admits, cheeks flushes when he realizes what he have been thinking on doing. There’s no need for him to wake Sehun up, actually. But, somehow, it feels right so. Still, hearing his thought out loud make it way more embarassing than it is. And Sehun really take a long time to decipher what happen, before he shakes his head, chuckling. “I woke up earlier than you, if you’re wondering,” he starts, moving over toward Kai to help the tanned male to stand up from the floor. 

“Really?” Kai questions back, and Sehun nods. 

“Joonmyeon comes over around seven earlier and told me to tell you that he have class to attend.” 

Sehun have his arms wrap around his back, when Joonmyeon barges into the ward, waving a paper over his head with a big grin but it falters when he sees the two of them. 

Quickly, he rushes toward Kai’s side, “What happens?”

Kai brushes it off with a sheepish grins, pushing Sehun away from him gently, “Nothing happen. I just lost my footing.”

Joonmyeon mumbles out an audible oh as an respond, and Sehun clears his throat. “So, what’s up?”

“Oh,” Joonmyeon is back with his big smile, rushing the both of them to take a seat as he giddily clasps his hands together to announce the happy new. Kai glances at Sehun, silently asking if Sehun knows what happen and the taller male shrugs, having no idea himself. 

“So,” Joonmyeon drags his words, trying to hard to contain his excitement. Kai squints his eyes, because the last time Joonmyeon is this excited was when they were about to go to the fishing camp, thinking it was a best idea to bond over but they ended up wet because Joonmyeon accidentally loses control of their boat, causing them to tumble over into the lake. And Kai have this terrible hunch that Joonmyeon is planning another bonding vacation – “So, we’re going on a trip!”

He’s right. 

Joonmyeon is doing it again, and Kai facepalms. Sehun looks lost. 

“And you’re coming with us,” Joonmyeon exclaims, pointing to Sehun. The taller male points at himself, asking for confirmatin – afraid that he might hears wrong, but Joonmyeon eagerly nods, mouthing out ‘yes, you.’

Kai facepalms himself, groaning, “Great.” 

 

It’s a five hours drive, away from the bustling city. The sun was a radiant, all-watching eye, its light creeping into every corner, bathing the whole world in a warm glow but not hot enough for their skins to tingle in redness. It’s pretty windy too, considering how Sehun have insists to have their windows open. Appreciating the scenery. They cruised down a twisting road, grassy, forest green hills looming over the mountainous drive. An endless expanse of turquoise wonder, shimmering a liquid gold, stretched towards the distant horizon and Kai wonders, if it’s ever going to end. Sehun didn’t speak a word during their drive, choosing to keep his focus on the road so Kai didn’t complains about it.

The scenery are enough for a company. 

Joonmyeon is in another car, along with Jongdae and Baekhyun – leading the journay since it’s their first time going there. It have been a while, Jongdae says, when they’re packing over. And since his grandparents have long gone, there’s no one that lives there, so his family have turn the old manor into their family vacation house. 

 

 

 

The clearing field are situated beside one of the maize field, separated by a man made drains that allows the water to flow through to the much more bigger drains. Usually, it's the rain, and the residue water that comes when those farmers waters the plants during the morning and half an hour before sunsets. And since it's the harvesting season, one of the villagers told them that they're lucky enough to taste the raw taste of the sweet corn from the cob. Baekhyun is a bit sceptical at first, but the old man convinces him that it'll taste exactly as the milky corn candy. 

Joonmyeon looks at him in disbelief when Baekhyun still have the unconvinced face smears across his face, "Don't tell me you never taste them before?" and Baekhyun shrugs. Didn't think it is a big deal in the first place. 

Since it's near six, they quickly rolls open the picnic mat on the field to have their late-lunch. They haven't able to make a stop on their way since Jongdae insists that it'll prolong the journey and they won't be able to witness the first sunset in the east coast of the countryside, merely miles away from the old manor and the plant fields. 

The town are bit stretch far from them, but they'll go explore there later during the night to search for burning woods for fireplace tonight and maybe, some light snacksㅡ enough to hold until tomorrow morning. 

Kai passes the water bottle to Sehun, "Still holding up fine?" 

"I'm good, ask that to yourself, really," Sehun teases, taking the water bottles as he twists the opener opens. "But, it's pretty comforting here," he added, before he gulps the water down to half. The loud chattering amongst them have turns into a soft murmuring, as the time start to added, the shade of the sky become slightly darker. The vast, seemingly empty sky stretched out for infinity, and Kai wonders if his head could be clear as them. 

"It's far different than the time I was growing up here. Everything changed, except for the old manor," Kai hears Jongdae says, as he takes a tiny bite of his third sandwiches. "I guess, time doesn't wait for us. Things change, everyday, for better or worst." 

Joonmyeon sends Jongdae a sorrow looks, "Don't make my trip turns into some sappy mellow theater, Dae." And the said male scowls, pulling out the lettuce in his sandwiches and throw it to Joonmyeon face, earning a loud shriek from him.

Sehun laughs, seeing the both of olders's antics, as Kai merely shakes his head, already participating this whole trip to be fill with those two bickering. He turns his gaze toward Sehun. The taller male's face is contort in sheer happiness, his eyes crinkles and Sehun is holding his hands up to his mouth to hide his laughterㅡ by instinct , Kai comes closer and slowly reaches out to pull Sehun's hands away. And Sehun stops. 

Their gazes meet each other, and Kai is not sure if it's him, or his head making up images again, because somehow, he sees some familiarity in those dark orbs that's staring back at him. He feels as if he have shares thousand of emotions behind those dark orbs to be able to let himself willingly drown in them. And Sehun smiles, warmly down at him and Kai thinks his head is spinning a bit. "Want to take a look at the corn?" 

Jongdae's wheezing wakes him up from his stupor and Kai blinks his eyes for couple of times, "What?"

"Fuck Sehun. That's stupid," Jongdae claims, slapping Sehun's back couple of times while laughing as Sehun looks extremely troubles so Kai pushes Jongdae away, shaking his head in disapproval, "Hyung, don't hit him,"

"Ow, look at them, Joonmyeon," he cackles. 

Kai huffs in returns, cheeks flushes as he pulls Sehun's up to his feets. Jongdae's laughter rangs through the their evening, as the two males walk toward the maize fields. 

 

 

"Sorry," Kai mumbles under his breath, walking ahead of Sehun as they walk through the maize fields. The field looks like a maze, fills with the tall maize plants around and some of plants have already produced corns, looking all fresh to be picked. 

"It's fine," Sehun reassures. They stops, to catch on their breath. "I get it, he's like that. I will get use to it," 

"He teases a lot," Kai adds. 

His fingers pokes at the plant in front of him. Sehun hums, as he skillfully tugs on the maize's leaf to get them out from the way, pulling on the husk of the corns. There's silk produced at the top, brownish in colors and he twisted the husk before pulling them off from the stalk. Then, he shuck open the husk to reveal the sweet glorious yellow maize kernel to the tanned male, picking on the silk of the corns before handing it over to Kai. 

"I'm fine, Jongin. I like him," Sehun cuts off the tanned male, seeing how Kai looks like he have lot more to say. He gets it that Kai is just worry that Jongdae and him might not get along, but it's the opposite, really. Jongdae is a nice person and Sehun could see it that the male clearly dots on Kai a lot, from how the shorter male always make sure everything is enough for Kai. Well, everyone seem to dot on the male beside him, so Sehun is not even surprised. 

Kai reluctantly takes the yellow maize kernel from Sehun’s hand, inspecting the said things in his hand as Sehun repeats his doing, but this time, it’s for him. 

“You seems like you’re good at what you’re doing,” Kai points out. And Sehun stops at picking up the silk, “Guess, I’m good at everything.” 

He grins sheepishly. 

It takes Kai couple of seconds to realize the taller male’s pun, and when the realization hits him, Sehun is already laughing. And his face is reddens, “Shut up.” Kai bites onto the corn, and relishes on the sweet milky taste of the fresh kernels. It reminds him of honey that he have back at home. The juices comes out from the kernels also tastes sweet, and he beams at the said thing. 

“This is so good,” and Sehun chuckles, biting onto his own shared of corns in his hands. 

 

Joonmyeon volunteers to follow Jongdae to the town, to search for the woods while the rest stay inside the old manor, getting themselves ready for bed. And since Kai already have his stomach full with the corn, three of them, at the field earlier, he have choose to opt out for bed. Though that the manor have many unoccupied rooms, the older think it’s wiser to share room, in case anything happens, at least someone would be near. 

Kai and Sehun shared a room, while Jongdae with baekhyun and Joonmyeon would sleep alone at downstairs, beside the kitchen. At first, Jongdae offers the older to sleep together but Joonmyeon prefers the small room better, plus, it’s closer to the kitchen. 

Kai didn’t pack his bag, merely puts it down beside the vanity table. So, he crouch down to search for his t-shirts and pajama pants that he have packed when Sehun comes inside with a towel drapes over his shoulder. 

“Do you mind if I take the shower first?” he asks, pointing toward the bathroom. Without looking, Kai signals Sehun to go first since he didn’t find his pants yet. He swears he packed it an hour before they started on their journey. He remembered pulling the goddamn pant out from the dryer machine. Yet, he couldn’t find it. 

Giving up, he groans. His feets are already numb from crouching for too long because of that goddamn pants. So, he stands up, stretching up his limbs before walking over to the bed. The room are big, enough for ten people to fits in. The bed are the four poster bed with vertical columbs, one in each corner that supports a tester, or the upper panel. And the tester have rails to allow the white curtains to be pulled around the bed, pretty classic, exactly like in those medieval movie and Kai seems to taken a liking of the structure of the bed. Since his current bed at the apartment are the usual queen sized bed. And five steps away from the four poster bed, there’s a vanity table that is completed with its own mirror.

But the mirror is closed by a clothe, seeming like it have been gathering dust over the months. 

The tanned male sits at the end of the mattress, eyes boring holes toward the clothed mirror. His fingers are itchy to snatch the clothes off but Kai is not fond of having mirror when he’s asleep, childhood trauma, so he considers of doing it. The wallpaper of the room are pretty plains. The maroon colors with tiny brown flowers decorates across the papers makes the room seemed a tad darker. It didn’t help how the lamps in the room are slightly dims. Not the usual fluorescent one that people usually used since it's lot cheaper. 

Somehow, his attention gazes back toward the mirror. 

It feels as if someone is looking at him. He really want to shrug it off that perhaps because it’s an old manor and have been long since anyone been living here, the creepy atmosphere are strongs and his minds tend to thinks things that aren’t supposed to be waddle about. 

Kai is too lost in his head that he didn’t catch the sounds of the shower in the bathroom have stops. And Sehun is stepping out from the room, half naked as he brushes the extra towel over his head to dries his hair. The taller male stops, noticing how Kai didn’t notice him, “Jongin?”

Kai didn’t respond to his calling so Sehun tries again, “Jongin?” 

The said male jumps at his calls, turning his head toward Sehun, who’s standing at the bathroom entrance. His forehead are furrows, “You okay?” 

And Kai nods, “Yea.”

“You looks distracted earlier,” Sehun walks out from the bathroom, allowing Kai to see clearly of the tall mirror that hangs against the wall inside the bathroom. 

Yet, instead of Sehun’s broad shoulder that reflects on the mirror. It’s a reflection of a woman, brushing her long hair as she stares back into his eyes. Half of her face are covered by her dark hair, while the other half are pale as the powder with blue veins pops out. Her eyes are bloodshot, including her lips. 

It was red, bold red. 

Thinking it was another trick from his head, due to exhaustions, Kai shifts his attention elsewhere. And it didn’t escapes from Sehun’s eyes. Kai didn’t even reply to him earlier, and now even when he’s fully clothed, the tanned male still didn’t say anything. 

So, he strides toward the smaller male by the end of the bed before squatting down to Kai’s eyes level. “Hey,” he whispers, both hands grips onto Kai’s forearms. And the tanned male flinches, but he didn’t pushes Sehun away. 

He tries again, “Jongin, are you okay? Want me to call Joon hyung?” 

Kai shakes his head and Sehun is relief, that Kai reacts to him. He looks scared though, and Sehun don’t know what makes the smaller male feels that in the first place. His lips tugs into a small smile, as he stands up to walk toward the other side of the bed to fetch for a new towel to hand it to Kai when the smaller male tugs on his sleeves.

“Can we just go to sleep now?” 

Sehun frowns, “You haven’t shower yet. It might make you feel uncomfortable – “

“No, I don’t want to go shower,” Kai harshly whispers, and his fingers shakes. Taking it as a sign to stop, he knows better not to pry any longer, or force the smaller male to get a shower. He takes Kai’s t-shirt that Kai have took out earlier, “At least change into this, okay and we’ll go to bed.” 

Reluctantly, Kai lets go of his grip on Sehun’s sleeves and takes the t-shirt. He changes into the new t-shirt in a swift, before climbing onto the bed, laying on the mattress with eyes seal shut. The images of the pale woman still lingers in the back of his mind and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He could hear the soft click from the switch, and the room turns darker. The windows are drapes with long curtains and Sehun have already let it loose, not letting any lights from outside to come in as he slowly pads toward the bed.   
The other side of the bed dips, and Sehun lays himself beside the smaller male, facing Kai. 

“You won’t be able to sleep if you force yourself to do it,” he whispers. He notes how Kai have his arms wrapped around his smaller figure tightly as if he’s trying to protect himself from something, so gently, Sehun try to pry them away ,”I’m here, remember?”

And it seems to do the trick, as Kai lets his guard down and scoot closer, invading his personal space. He rests his head on Sehun’s chest, unaware of himself as he lets out a shaky breath. “I think I’m going crazy,” he mumbles. Sehun hungs his hands over the smaller male’s waist loosely, as he moves around to seach for a comfortable positions, “Haven’t you watch Alice?” 

Kai snorts, “What’s with it?”

Sehun pulls him closer by instict, relief that the other male didn’t pushes him away. And really, Sehun is a man that will never take any advantages and prefer to keep his personal space to himself, but somehow with Kai, he seems to forget about all of his rules. His restricted self are long forgetten, and laying there, it’s making him sleepy. 

He yawns, “That the best people are usually are.”

“Are what?”

“Mad.” 

“Right,” Kai huffs, lulling himself with the beat of Sehun’s heartbeat that rise and fall against his ears. Eventually, the both of them are difts off to dreamland, limbs tangles up together. 

 

 

The next day, after both of them have their breakfast, both of the males are lounging on the couch. Kai is leaning onto the armrest of the couch with Sehun’s head on his legs, sprawl on the other side of the couch. There aren’t anything much to do, but Joonmyeon found an old phonograph in his bedroom last night and he places those antique on the table, in front of the fireplace. 

The old melodies of Elvis Presley’s hit fills the area, and Kai is drifting back to sleep when Jongdae comes running down the stairs while holding up a small sachet in his hands.

Sehun pulls himself up, raising his eyebrows when Jongdae holds the back toward him with a cheeky grin. 

“What’s that?” And Jongdae wiggles the bag, laughing. “Bath bombs,” he casually remarks, and wiggles it again for Sehun to take it. 

“What for?” Sehun asks, taking in the bag into his hands. Interested as well, Kai scoots closer to look inside the bad when Sehun pulls the string opens.

Jongdae exaggerately sighs, “For shower, of course. There’s amazing bathtub in here. Use it well.” 

Sehun passes the tote bags to Kai, letting the tanned male to topple over all the small bath bombs in various colors into his palm. “Thanks, hyung,” Sehun mumbles, not interested before getting back to lay his head on the couch and Jongdae beams at him. The said male then skips toward the phonograph, poking his head around, trying to figure it out how it work.

“How do we use this?” 

Kai glances at the older, shrugging. “Joon hyung put it on. Cool, right?” 

Jongdae hums, backing away from the said things. “Isn’t it classic of him? Can’t help falling in love with you by Elvis with you two lounging around like a married couple?”  
Kai throws the cushions toward Jongdae, and it hits him square in the face, causing the shorter male to stumble slightly on his feet. Kai ignores the angry ‘hey’ comes from the shorter when he realizes he haven’t seen his brother and Baekhyun around since the morning. And it’s near afternoon. 

“Where’s Baekhyun hyung actually?” Kai gets up to his feet, taking the tote bags along with him. And Sehun automatically stands too. Jongdae quitely laughs, taking the other unoccupied couch to take out his phone. “He went with Joonmyeon to the town. They will be back before afternoon with food.”

Kai nods, taking in the information. Sehun beckons to the smaller male to go first and Kai quitely excuses himself toward the stairs. They climbs up the stairs together, and Kai purposely slows down on his steps, before he turns toward Sehun, “You don’t have to follow me, you know,” 

Sehun shrugs, keeping his hands inside the pocket of his pants. He gestures the male to continue walking upstairs and Kai have no choice but to oblige. It’s not like he’s uncomfortable with Sehun. It just, he really don’t want to be seem as the weak one in the taller male’s eyes, thinking that Sehun need to be with him all the time, afraid that something might happen. Although part of him are please with that, yet, another half of him feels guilty. 

Sehun pushes the curve behind the smaller’s male back gently, when Kai stops on his tracks suddenly on the stairs, urging him to continue walking, “Stop thinking. I’m doing it on my own wills.”

 

“I saw a woman in the mirror last night,” Kai pulls his legs close to his chest, as he sits himself on the toilet lid. Sehun is crouching beside the bathtub, sleeves rolled halfway to his forearms to check on the water temperature. “She was inside the mirror,” Kai continues, but Sehun glances at the older male with a stoic face. He pulls his hands out from the tub and stands to crouch in front of the smaller male. 

He sighs, putting both of his hands on either side of the toilet, “Let’s not think too much of this. You’re torturing yourself. Take a bath and we’ll talk about it. I don’t like seeing you like this, really.” Kai nods, and Sehun pulls both of them up. He gives the older male a small smile, squeezing Kai’s forearms before walking out from the bathroom, but after telling Kai that he will be outside with his laptop. 

After making sure that Sehun is out from the bathroom, Kai leans onto the counter top, staring into the mirror, where he saw the woman yesterday. His heart heavily says that there was something wrong, but he really don’t want to trouble everyone. Joonmyeon have been working extra hard to make sure everyone feel at ease, especially Kai during this whole trip. It planned well with everyone schedules too, since they’re on semester break so they don’t need to think of getting home in rush afterwards. 

He strips himself bare before turning to face his own reflection in the mirror. His face looks weary, and there are eye bags under his eyes. His collarbone are poking out, and Kai swears he could see his own rib cage if he bends down. His weight have shrunk drastically and he looks unpleasant. 

Without wasting any more time, he tears his eyes away from the reflection and walks toward the bath rub. The sounds of his feet echoes against the marble tiles of the bathroom, and it’s quite, oddly, really. The windows beside the bathtub are closed, enabling the sunlight from getting in but it didn’t matter. Kai don’t think he would appreciate the hot blaze of the sun mares onto his skins when he’s trying to get a bath. 

He pulls the small sachet that Jongdae gave to him earlier, pulling out one of the bath bomb onto his palms. It is red in colors, dark as the blood and Kai raises his eyebrows at Jongdae’s choice of bath bombs colors. It didn’t surprises him that Jongdae have been keeping lots of bath bomb collection in, back at home, but to see that Jongdae have changed his color preference from pastel to this dark color, it was truly out of his nature. 

But Kai really don’t want to think too much about it. Jongdae is weird no matter what, and trying to figure him out is like asking for a massive headache. So, he throws the red bath bomb into the water. And it explodes in a small massive explosions inside the water. The later translucent water turns into a very pale red colors and Kai throws another three.   
It didn’t turn as dark as he wishes. It still looks cool, though. He went inside the tub, leaning his back agaisnt the cold bathtub as he pushes his feet forward. His body slowly dives into the water until half of his face are swallows inside the water. 

Kai closes his eyes, basking in the lukewarm water against his skins. He lets himself to be lulls, emptying his minds for the sake of its. He tried not to think of anything else, and just focus on the water that embraces his whole beings. It’s the time like this, he finds himself floating, away from the pressure of the world. Before the nightmare happens, he was pulled down by the weight of his final, the pilling assignments and projects that need to be done. There were too many stuff that need to be done and Kai finds it very impossible to search for any leisure time for him to sit down and do things he like anymore. 

Now that the nightmare comes, his mind decides to go haywire. He keep seeings things that he shouldn’t have seen because nobody else did. 

He dives his head fully into the water, cutting his oxygen short as he focus on the tingling pain that starts to creep in due to lack of oxygen. His eyes are clenches shut. While at that, the water slowly turns into a deeper shade of red. And thicks. The fade red wents to shade crimson like blood, and Kai pulls himself upward. 

His eyes are still closes. Bringing his hands to wipe the water off from his face, he stops when the water feels sticky against his skins. It stucks, and his hands start to tremble when his mind are starting to think of the worse. Kai’s throat suddenly clog and he couldn’t scream for Sehun’s name. He couldn’t find it in himself to open his eyes. 

And his ears catch a small sounds of water in front of him; a movement. It didn’t splashed like it supposed to be, the sounds of a sticky substances against something fills the bathroom. It was heavy. Kai forces his eyes open wide, and he finds himself to be fill with no longer water, but a tub fills with blood. 

His whole being are covered in the crimson colors. And he want to puke. The pungent smells of the blood fills his nosetrills and Kai want to get away from it but he couldn’t. His body refuses to move. He is in a state of trying to escape, when something catches in the corner of his eyes. 

There’s someone. 

Something, that’s trying to appear out from the blood and Kai opens his mouth to scream but nothing comes out. A hand grip on the bathtub, fingers long coated with the blood and the said thing head was hung lower, hide away with her long hair that sticks to each other because of the crimson liquid. Kai pulls his legs, struggling to get out. He pushes his upper body out from the tub, but the thing pulls on his legs. 

A silent sobs escapes from his mouth. Kai pushes his legs with all his might. He loathes the feel of the blood on his body. But the thing pull him back inside the tub, pushing him deep into the tub fills with blood. And Kai starts to thrash around. The blood tastes weird. The coppery taste lingers and he screams. 

He didn’t care anymore. 

Kai screams in fear. He shakes his head, thrashing around inside the bathtub with hope that it will get him free from the thing that is latching itself onto him. 

Caught in suprises, Sehun pushes his laptop away from his lap when he hears the loud shrills of Kai’s scream inside the bathroom. He rushed inside, hearts beat rapidly. And the sight that he sees wasn’t nice. Kai is literally drowning himself inside the water, as he thrashes around by his own doing. 

The taller male’s step staggers. 

Kai bites his own hands, drawing blood with the pressure of his teeth. It looks cannibalistic and Sehun really don’t what to do. His eyes are boring hole on the older male, and the others barge inside the bathroom. He sees Joonmyeon shouts toward Jongdae to pull Kai’s hands, and he hears Baekhyun’s loud gasps beside him. 

Joonmyeon pulls Kai out from the bath tub with the help of Jongdae, while Kai is still thrashing around, sobbing mercilessly with his eyes closes. 

“Nini, oh dear god,” Jongdae whispers, shaking the younger male’s hand in worried. The blood still gushes out from his hands due to the bite, and Jongdae rips the end of his sleeves to wrap around them. 

Sehun walks toward toward them, as he bends his knees onto the marbled floor in front of Kai. Kai already opens his eyes, sobbing. His eyes are red, fills with over brimming fears. At the sight of Sehun, the younger reaches out from him, tears freshly flows out from his eyes and Sehun pulls him into his arms, shushing the crying male. Joonmyeon sends him a worried look, before fetching the towel from the sink top, draping them around Kai’s bare body. 

Sehun cards his fingers through Kai’s wet locks, humming as he rocks both of their body together.

“I want to go home, please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I guess this shall start the pace.


End file.
